In this short anecdote, entitled “The Citizen of the World,” an immigrant claims citizenship in the state of Chou. Arrested and challenged to prove his claim, he recites a verse from the Book of Odes, a classic collection of Chinese poetry complied many centuries before the Warring States period. Upon hearing the poem, the king accepts him as his subject. Thus, in essence, the immigrant solves his dilemma by placing his actions in the context of an earlier time. As you read the anecdote, ask yourself why the king accepted the immigrant’s claim of citizenship. Why might he have found the vision of political authority offered by the ancient poem appealing and persuasive?
Once there was a man from Wen who migrated to Chou but Chou did not admit aliens.
“Are you an alien?” they asked him.
“No, a native,” he replied. They asked him what lane he lived in and he could not tell them, so the bailiff took him off to jail. The ruler sent a man to question him.
“Why did you call yourself citizen when you are an alien?” he asked.
“When I was a child and learned the Book of Odes, I chanted the verses that went:
Any land with the heavens above it
Is the king’s land.
Anyone within the circling sea
Is the king’s servant.
“Since Chou rules all under heaven l am the servant of the son of Heaven — how should I be an alien? This is why I said I was a citizen.”
The ruler of Chou ordered his officer to release the man.
Source: J. I. Crump, Legends of the Warring States: Persuasions, Romances, and Stories from Chan-
Questions to Consider